matter since Robot Nessie did not need to breathe. The temperature began to drop as well, and Robot Nessie initiated its internal thermal regulation unit so that its components would not freeze.
Robot Nessie left the Earth's atmosphere and began to turn in a giant arc plotted by its satellite guidance system. The stars surrounding it were plotted on the screen behind its eyes. Although surrounded by a vast unfathomable beauty that only a select few will ever experience, Robot Nessie's thoughts were elsewhere. It was much too focused on its comedy routine to be bothered by the wonders of outer space.
The descent began after Robot Nessie reached the peak of the arc. It raced back down toward the earth at an incredible speed. The heat caused by the friction of re-entering the Earth's atmosphere caused Robot Nessie to glow bright red. It initiated its cooling mechanisms and the glow began to fade.
The sea would be Robot Nessie's first destination. It would greatly simplify the landing procedures. Besides, the Cryptid Comedy Club of the Pacific Northwest was located right on the coast.
The air surrounding Robot Nessie's frame whistled and howled as it cut through the air, nearing the sea. Robot Nessie plunged deep beneath the waves. It curved its long neck up toward the surface as it sank deeper and deeper. Its body followed, and the remaining speed of the dive caused its body to shoot upward toward the surface.
Robot Nessie scanned the surrounding area for onlookers and found none. Its path was clear all the way to the front door of the Cryptid Comedy Club. Robot Nessie breached the surface and began to skip across the waves. When its speed decreased, it activated its rocket boosters once more, flying low over the water toward the shore.
The lights of the Cryptid Comedy Club were now in sight and a bright green target had locked onto the building in Robot Nessie's vision. It initiated its forward thrusters as well as the rear facing thrusters in order to slow itself down as it approached the building. The slightest error in calculation could destroy the entire Cryptid Comedy Club, if not the whole town.
Robot Nessie slowed to a hover inches away from the door. There was no line outside of this comedy club. There was no even a bouncer. Had Murphy the Robot Merman been mistaken? Was there no open mic night? Robot Nessie entered the building with great difficulty through the tiny door.
The bartender, a snarling werewolf wearing an apron, stood behind the bar. That was the only creature visible aside from a lone centaur sitting at a table in front of the stage. A banner hung from the ceiling above the stage read: OPEN MIC NIGHT in bold yellow letters against a red backdrop. The werewolf bartender exited the bar and came face to face with Robot Nessie.
"Are you here to perform for open mic night?" the werewolf growled. Though Robot Nessie had no real sense of smell, its olfactory sensors registered that the werewolf's breath smelled like putrid meat.
"I am. Is it still happening?" Robot Nessie asked, scanning the crowd again and switching to thermal vision to double-check that the centaur was the only audience member.
"It is. It is happening right now. Not many critters come to open mic night..." the werewolf said as drool dripped down its thick whiskers. "What is your name?"
"The Robot Loch Ness Monster," Robot Nessie said, opting for its full name.
The werewolf turned away from Robot Nessie and approached the stage. When it reached the mic it growled and said, "Now introducing our first performer of the evening, The Robot Loch Ness Monster."
The lone centaur in the crowd applauded enthusiastically. Robot Nessie initiated its boosters and hovered onto the stage in front of the mic. As it looked out at the crowd of one, its artificial intelligence unit processed that this was the optimum circumstance for Robot Nessie. It fulfilled both its desire to perform stand-up comedy, as well as its shyness protocols. Paired with its newly downloaded comedy software, this was guaranteed to be a better stand-up comedy experience for Robot Nessie.
Robot Nessie initialized the stand-up comedy software upgrade with the heckler deflection patch and opened its document entitled GOODJOKESATTEMPT5. It was finally time.
"What's the deal with potato chip bags? I mean, come on, could they put fewer chips into those things?" Robot Nessie said into the microphone. The centaur chuckled a bit. "I heard that there is so much air in potato chip bags now that scuba divers are using them instead of oxygen tanks!"
The cog that caused Robot Nessie's inability to smile finally came loose, and it displayed a grin as the centaur roared with laughter.
"What do you call a sea-serpent with no eyes? A used-to-see-serpent," Robot Nessie said triumphantly, causing the centaur to spew its drink across its table. Even the werewolf bartender seemed to be chuckling a bit. Making a werewolf laugh was no easy feat.
"What do you call a yeti that isn't ready to do something yet? A not-yeti," Robot Nessie delivered with perfectly calculated timing in its mechanized Australian accent as the werewolf pounded on the bar and the centaur stamped its hooves.
"Have you heard the one about the sasquatch that walked right past a bakery without buying anything? Me neither." The centaur had actually started to cry, and the werewolf was howling. Robot Nessie decided to stop its first successful stand up attempt while it was on top.
"Thanks everybody, I'm the Robot Loch Ness Monster. You've been a great audience!"
Robot Nessie initiated its rocket boosters and began to hover above the stage as the werewolf and the centaur applauded raucously. Robot Nessie bowed in midair and exited the Cryptid Comedy Club. When it was outside, it scanned the surrounding area and monitored its satellite imaging before shooting straight into the air.
It traversed sea, sky, and space in a matter of minutes, and then did it all over again before finally plunging back into Loch Ness. Its automatic update sent to the real Nessie soon after it returned, assuring her that all was well in the loch and that she could continue in her own personal pursuits.
Night was falling and Robot Nessie entered Rest Mode. It would glide slowly beneath the surface to conserve energy until the sun rose and it would replenish its power banks. As it closed its computerized eyes, it replayed the video footage it had recorded of its first stand-up comedy success over and over.
Bigfoot: Starting a Blog
Deep within a damp, dimly lit cave located somewhere in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, a fur covered creature known as Bigfoot grasped his laptop as he reclined his easy chair. White light reflected dully off of his reddish-brown scraggly fur, cast from the blank screen in front of him. The laptop had grown warm, but Bigfoot had not yet typed a word.
His gargantuan hands hovered over the keyboard, his fingertips lightly grazing the tops of the keys, but he could not think of anything to write about. Bigfoot had set up his blog weeks ago, but had been too preoccupied to actually make any entries into it until now. He was absolutely determined to not go another day without having his thoughts broadcast to the world via the internet.
Bigfoot felt that he had a great deal to say, but whenever he tried to think of a topic, he could not seem to come up with anything worth writing about. Given his standing within the cryptid community, he knew that his friends and colleagues could benefit from and appreciate the wealth of knowledge he had attained over the years, but how did he put it down on the blank page before him? There were a lot of sasquatches, but only one Bigfoot. Why could he not do this?
The text cursor at the top of the screen blinked idly at him incessantly. He almost felt that it was mocking him. He opened a new tab on his internet browser. The pure white screen had been getting to him.
He opened the blog settings page and decided to tweak the presentation of the blog itself. It was tentatively titled Bigfoot's Bigblog. He decided that the name should stay as it was for the time being. The background of the blog was a monotone forest green color. It was his favorite color, but would it be interesting and intriguing to the reader? His placed a hand on his shaggy chin as he considered the matter.
"Hmmm," he said in a hardly audible tone. H
is fiancé, who was sitting on the couch caddy cornered from Bigfoot's easy chair peered over the top of the book she was reading.
"How's it coming, babe?" she asked in her low but feminine voice.
"How's what going?" Bigfoot asked absentmindedly as he clicked through the multitude of available blog backgrounds.
"Your blog, of course," she said, placing her book down on her lap and giving him her full attention.
"Oh, right, of course. Well, it's... uhh... it's still in the developmental stages, you know?"
She nodded resignedly and picked her book back up, disappearing behind it once more. She was the only cryptid that he had yet told about his blog. He felt that the fewer cryptids that knew about it, the less pressure would be on him to post an entry. And more importantly, for that first entry to be good...
Bigfoot settled on a background that was a photograph of a sloping hill covered in pine trees with a low fog hovering above the branches. He liked this one because it looked like home, and because it would give his readers a sense of where he came from.
"Yeah, this will look great with my thoughts, opinions, and anecdotes written over it," he whispered to himself. He saw in his peripheral vision that his fiancé had peered over the top of her book at him again.
He returned to the blank page again. He had hoped that he